Establishing your own record label seems to be something of a trend in the music industry nowadays. Everyone from Elijah Wood (of Lord of the Rings fame) to John Butler has set up their own label, with varying degrees of success.
While this democratisation of music is undoubtedly a positive thing, it does occasionally remind us that for every independent gem like Gotye or Sneaky Sound System, there are dozens of acts that sink into the musical quicksand without leaving a trace. Some of these are stories of criminal ignorance or unfortunate circumstance, like Gotye’s Boardface album, which sold scant few copies until his second album and its single made Wally DeBacker a figure worthy of an appearance on Spicks and Specks.
Others, unfortunately, aren’t overlooked by radio presenters because they’re too extreme, or because they don’t have the right promotion, but because they really aren’t very good, and no one has had the heart to say “maybe you should consider a career in finance”.
Taste the Chop, by Sydney act R.J. Chops is, sadly, a member of the latter category. To their credit, there is no pretence to their sound, but, unfortunately, there’s not much to warrant attention, either.
Production quality isn’t the be-all and end-all of making an album, but in the era of ProTools and other software-based editing programs, it really is ridiculously easy to make an album sound at least a little professional. Taste the Chop really is too rough to be called an EP: the awkward harmonies and poorly mixed rhythm section make this feel more like a demo than a studio-quality recording. Not only is it a poor ad for the band, it doesn’t say much for Requiem Records, the fledging record label that the band set up to release the disc.
Dodgy production could be tolerated, though, if the song writing was good enough to compensate, or even offered some hint of potential. Indie darling and lo-fi exponent M.Ward produced a series of rough EPs and demos on his four-track that gave listeners a clue to his talent.
Though it would be lovely to be able to say that Taste the Chop showed potential, it would also, sadly, be a lie. Throughout the six tracks on the EP, the bass wanders aimlessly, the vocals are atonal, and the lyrics are dull. The band espouses a “plain English approach to lyrical content”, which is not at all a bad thing, but hard to do well. The intended effect is obviously to create music that is immediately accessible, but it comes off sounding as if the lyrics were hashed out over a few beers at the pub minutes before taking the stage.
Taste the Chop is not an agonising or outright awful album. It is simply not very good, and is probably best used as a cautionary device for redirecting those intent on a career in music for whom talent is sadly absent.
